Postal Service Follows Jewelry Ban To The Letter

Some Lake Mary Workers Had To Cut Off Their Wedding Bands To Comply With The No-jewelry Rule.

March 26, 1996|By Elaine Bennett of The Sentinel Staff

LAKE MARY — Jackie Young and a half-dozen of her fellow U.S. Postal Service workers in Seminole County must decide whether to cut off their wedding rings or they face losing their jobs.

Forty-seven employees who work on or near heavy machinery at the Mid-Florida Processing Center on Rinehart Road were told last week that they no longer may wear jewelry on their hands, wrists and ears. Supervisors at the 700-employee plant said the move was a safety precaution.

Most employees removed their jewelry, but 10 workers couldn't take off their wedding rings unless they cut them - a step most didn't want to take.

For 34-year-old Young, who has sorted mail at the plant for six years, cutting off her wedding band would be like breaking the vow she took 16 years ago.

''It was a sacred vow - till death do us part. It didn't mean unless I work for the Postal Service,'' said Young, adding that her finger is swollen from trying to remove the ring.

The employees were placed on paid leave and given a few days to comply or they face losing their jobs, said Joseph Breckenridge, spokesman for the postal service's regional office in Atlanta.

On Monday, three of those employees returned to work after cutting off their rings, he said.

Breckenridge said supervisors at the Lake Mary plant are basing their actions on a very strict interpretation of a 1993 postal service guideline that prohibits mail sorters working near machines from wearing jewelry on their hands, wrists and ears. The guideline also says workers can't wear ties or have long hair.

He said most of the other 40,000 processing centers across the country - including one in south Orange County - allow wedding rings and watches but prohibit dangling jewelry. He said the postal service is reviewing the rule in light of the challenges from Lake Mary employees.

Breckenridge said the rule was instituted after a New Jersey postal worker with long hair was dragged into a mail conveyor system and crushed to death in the late 1980s.

Although there have been no reports of injuries at the Lake Mary center, Breckenridge said, a committee of employees and supervisors there complained recently that safety measures were not being enforced consistently throughout the plant.

''We don't mean to deprive anyone of their rights,'' Breckenridge said. ''We just don't want anything ugly to happen to the workers. We are responsible for their safety.''

Michael Thomas, president of the Mid-Florida Local American Postal Workers Union, said enforcement of the rule in Lake Mary came unexpectedly. He said employees should have been given at least a month to comply.

''We, too, are concerned about employee safety,'' he said, ''but prior notice would have been the proper thing to do. That way, workers could have gone home, iced their fingers or asked a doctor how to get their rings off without cutting them.''

As Young does, some workers ''believe they are cutting their marriage vows by cutting that ring off. They are taking it as a personal wedding vow issue, not a safety issue,'' Thomas said.

Some workers, he said, also have complained that cutting their rings will diminish their value.

Young and a few workers have offered to wear gloves rather than remove their wedding rings.

However, Breckenridge said gloves are discouraged because they, too, can get caught in machinery and cause serious injury.

A supervisor initially told Young she also had to remove her nose ring. However, he rescinded that order because nose rings aren't mentioned in the 1993 ruling and he could give no explanation as to how it might get caught in the machinery.